Yowza!

(There are pictures below of the effects of radiation. They might make you a bit squeamish. Please know that none of the pictures are of anything innapropriate. Even if I was left with any normal feninine features in the mastectomy area, these pictures would still not be of anything indecent-- just the skin around the area where the tumor was.)

Ok first I'd like to ask for prayer to continue this blog. As my treatment nears its end (only 5 more radiation treatments to go!) I feel more and more like I am ready to leave cancer behind. And much less willing to keep up a blog on it. But it's something I feel called to do. In the beginning I wrote because I wanted an easy way to keep family and friends updated with my progress. Then it became an outlet for my scariest thoughts.

But frankly, it's been really difficult to focus enough on the fears to write it all down. I've learned many lessons, most of them have been recorded, but plenty of them have been too hard to face, much less write down. However, I've continued to feel God urging me to share. I'm constantly reminded by the statistic that 1 out of 8 women will get breast cancer. So maybe I'm in a position to help some of those women just by being transparent in my own journey. But, like I said, it's pretty darn painful to face my fears and allow myself to reflect enough to write about cancer. So I'd appreciate your prayers.

Now on to the "Yowza" part...

Radiation has mostly been a breeze. I've recounted over and over again how lucky I am to be mostly numb in the affected area so that I didn't have pain from the get-go. But now I can REALLY say that I am more grateful than ever because now the pain is creeping up above the numbness and I tremble just thinking about how difficult it would have been to feel this pain since the beginning of treatment 5 weeks ago!

Here's what my skin looked like a few days ago when the pain first started to flare up (up to this point all I'd felt was a soreness and tightening) And no, this is not a picture of any underarm hair. This shot isn't even high enough to include that part of my body, and even if it did, there's still no hair there. If you really want a good look, you can click on the picture and see it upclose where you can tell that you're looking at blisters and peeling skin: (I honestly don't recommend looking any closer though. Although for some reason I imagine Crystal G. and several others of you 'medical types' being interested. = )
 
Here you can see the variation of color in the skin being treated and my normal skin. The purple line on the side is just one of the lines they use to get me in the same spot every day for radiation.

And here's what that same spot looks like today:

Up until today I've been able to use just aspirin but today I had to move up to the "good stuff!" Being at home where I can wear a loose shirt is much better than being out because my bra moves against the bad areas and the weight of my prosthetic hurts a lot. I'm glad my kids are as young as they are because if they were any older and had more awareness they would be scarred forever by the sight of me reaching into my shirt to yank my prosthetic out to get a little relief!

And speaking of my prosthetic, I'm going to post pics of it. Sorry if it's offensive in any way. To me it's just plastic and I thought some of you might be curious. Prosthetics for breast cancer are known commonly in the bc community as foobies (f for "fake").

Here it is...

And here it is in it's little cover that I can take off and wash. You can see the purple stain on the bottom of it. That's because the marker for radiation rubs off onto it.

I think I mentioned that about two weeks ago (or has it been three now?) that I lost all of my eyebrows and eyelashes. I thought that was so odd considering chemotherapy was well over and the rest of my hair was growing back. Thankfully my lashes and brows started growing back almost as soon as they fell out. I'm so thankful for this because losing these things was worse for me than losing the hair on my head. Here you can see that my lashes are growing back (and you can see the few tiny long hairs I've still got which, yes, I've still been putting mascara on!).

And this is how much hair I've got today. Every morning when I look in the mirror I can see how much it's grown. Terry and I love to rub it because it's coming in so super soft! It's still really thin so I'm not quite ready to go without the wig yet.

So to sum up-- Ouch and Yowza!!-- radiation is a bummer! But my last 8 treatments are just to doobie (the mast. area) so the other skin can start to heal. When I was first diagnosed a lot of survivors reached out to me and I remember one of them saying that radiation was only a big deal to people who hadn't gone through chemotherapy as well. I guess that's true. Chemo was 20 times worse, but radiation's no picnic either!

A Hard Week

I've mentioned it several times before but it's very hard to find and keep peace when you're dealing with health issues. Most of the time I am completely ok with my diagnosis, my current status, and my treatment. But then there are times, like this last week, when something somehow dislodges or comes loose and I find myself back at square one. Back at the bottom of the mountain, looking up and thinking, "There is no way I'm climbing that! There's no way I'll ever make it to the top!"

When this murky mood hit me recently I immediately got on my knees, pulled out my Bible, and talked to God. I read scripture after scripture and found that it didn't matter how much I read or how much I pleaded to get some peace- I just felt empty.

And for three days I lived like that- a shadow of a person, just trying, yet again, to crawl into God's lap. Eventually I got there. And I wish I had an answer to tell anyone out there who will ever find themselves in a similar position. But I don't. All I know is that I had enough faith to keep saying that even though things felt scary and dark, I knew that my God was still in control and that if I kept searching long enough, I'd find Him again.

It seems unusual that we have to fight so hard to get to God sometimes. I think it feels unfair that I have to ride this roller coaster of acceptance. I wish I could say that I trusted in God enough that I never had a low moment or a day filled with fear. But there's something about God, something intrinsic to his character-- He isn't a genie in a bottle and He won't always give me what I want when I want it. He loves me enough to teach me again and again that this world, and my happiness in it, is not that important. He loves me enough to allow me to feel pain on earth so that I don't get short-sided, comfortable or selfish while I'm here.

I'm reading The Hole in Our Gospel (phenomenal!) and I read this today and identified...
"'I showed up, Lord. I'm here. It took every ounce of my courage just to be here. But I can't do this job. I feel hopeless for the first time in my life. I don't even know what to do next. It's up to You now. You got me into this, and You'll have to do the rest. Help me.' And He did. For perhaps the first time in my life, God had me right where He wanted me, helpless and relying completely on Him." 

Forgive me, God, for all the times I start to get content and rely on myself. Thank you for the sometimes painful reminders that I can only rely fully on You.

Susan P. texted me yesterday and said she heard a song and God told her it was for me. I'd heard it a hundred times before but somehow never listened to the words. They are moving words that exactly capture how I feel.



Running back to His promises. That perfectly describes my life for the past six months. Continually running back to those promises...

Thanks for the song Susan.

Back and Forth

I'm betting that if you talked to an oncology psychotherapist, I'm right on track with the other thousands of people living with dormant cancer. What are those phases of acceptance? Denial, anger, depression, etc, etc.

Is there a phase called schizophrenic or bi-polar? Cause that's me right now. Up and down, happy and sad, joyful and mad.

I pulled out my pink ribbon coffee mug a few days ago and I felt like it was a huge step for me. It was a good morning, I was embracing my "survivor status." Later that day I decided to venture into my On Demand videos of breast cancer (they are offering a lot of special tv shows on bc in honor of bc awareness month) and I'd eventually turned the tv off feeling depressed. I fumed and daydreamed of burning all of my cancer books in a huge bonfire.

The next morning I thought I'd conquer a left-over effect of chemo- I ordered a green tea smoothie. I used to order them all the time, until I got one the morning of a chemo treatment and from then on couldn't stomach the idea it.

So I walk into Smoothie King and the girl who sees me every morning says, "You want your usual?" And on impulse, I say, "No, give me a green tea smoothie, please!" This may sound like nothing to you, but small things like this are helpful for me. I felt empowered to order this drink I associated with chemotherapy. But three minutes later I was sick to my stomach as I walked to my car with the green drink. And I kept getting more and more nauseous.. and I never coul take even one sip of the smoothie.

Chemotherpay is still with me, even though it's been over a month since my last infusion. My hair is growing back. I look like a chia pet right now. But, my eyebrows are completely gone except for about nine little pathetic hairs on either side. It's weird that my eyebrows didn't fall out until the rest of my hair started growing back.

I still get tingly and numb feet at least once a day, too. Which is also a side effect that didn't really hit me until after chemo. But none of the physical ailments of chemo are as bad as the mental issues I'm still facing from Chemo-Coma or "Chemo brain."

Example: I've always been a fan of Iron Chef. Terry and I used to watch the Japanese version of the tv show in college. And I've seen the American version several times. Earlier this week I was surfing some of the shows On Demand and saw that they had all the episodes of The Next Iron Chef in which they put cooks to the test to see who will be the next competitive star of Iron Chef. I watched 6 episodes of The Next Iron Chef and was watching the finale when it suddenly occured to me that I was watching an old season. And that I had, in fact, seen the winner of Next Iron Chef compete on Iron Chef several times.

Did all that make sense? Simply put, I spent 6 hours of my life watching a competition when I already knew who the winner would be. I just couldn't remember it.

Those of you who are survivors of chemo--- how long does all of this last?